I think it would probably kill God to give a direct answer to anything.
And it would probably kill me to hear the direct answer.
In this way God and I spare each other
the awkward conversation, with both our arms shaking
under this ashy rock that won’t fit through my door—
this thing he brought me because, drunk, I asked him to.
[This poem was originally published in the print journal Relief, Spring 2019]
https://www.reliefjournal.com/spring-2019
Natasha Oladokun is a poet and essayist. She holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Jackson Center for Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Harvard Review Online, Pleiades, Kenyon Review Online, The Adroit Journal, Image, The RS 500, and elsewhere. She is Associate Poetry Editor at Story South, and is the inaugural First Wave Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
April 2022
Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.
Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.